Michael Coughlin Jr.
In a vote of 15 to 13, a slight majority of residents who attended and voted during the Harbor View Neighborhood Association (HVNA) meeting on Monday, Dec. 5, were not in favor of the proposed addition to the Brooke Charter School on Horace Street.
The Brooke Charter School is a public college preparatory school that serves underserved students in the community – low-income students, students of color, English language learners (ELL), and students with disabilities. Over time the school has done tremendous work for its student body and was named the best-performing non-exam High School in the city just last year.
However, even as the school has succeeded, it is still looking to improve and better serve its students. Now the Brooke Charter School is looking to add an addition to its building that would span about 4,500 square feet.
“Our school next door – 94 Horace Street – has always been one of our smallest buildings which means it has kind of the smallest ability to provide programmatic space for our students, and we want to improve that with this addition,” said Brooke Charter School’s Chief Operating Officer Mark Loring.
The three-floor addition would add space to build science labs, a designated art room, and additional small pull-out spaces for special education and ELL students.
“There’s been new regulations that have been passed in the last several years which effects this in terms of number of kids within a group, number of minutes that we need to serve students, so it’s affecting how many spaces we need to be able to provide these services,” said Loring.
Loring indicated the school’s population has changed over time, saying, “As we tried to recruit more ELL and special needs students, we have gotten those students, and as we get those students, we have more need for staff or spaces in order to provide the required services for those students.”
Since March, this project has been presented and debated; if the latest vote is any indicator, it has been polarizing.
One of the main issues with the project brought up in the past and even at Monday’s meeting is that the school would increase its enrollment, admitting more students and contributing to more traffic in the area.
However, Loring once again denied that notion saying, “There’s a common belief that we’re going to build this addition because we’re trying to add more students. We have stated clearly and continue to state clearly that is not true – we are not looking to expand our enrollment.”
Loring mentioned that the school has been willing to put the fact that the addition is not being built to add students in writing with the board of the HVNA.
Debate raged on Monday, mainly about the school’s enrollment, as some residents were not convinced that the school would not add students even with it in writing.
Other concerns broached Monday about the project involved parking issues during construction as well as construction bringing rodents to the area.
While an HVNA majority opposed the project, the project is slated to go before the Zoning Board of Appeals Tuesday, Dec. 13.
“All I’m trying to do is build space as considerately as possible, knowing that there’s some disruption and trying to address those disruptions in order to give the space for the kids who deserve it – I’m not trying to build myself an office,” said Loring.